Work on a long-awaited hospital redevelopment has started.

Construction of the first new building linked to the £420million 3Ts project at the Royal Sussex County Hospital began yesterday.

The six-storey, temporary building will stand at the front of the hospital site and will house clinical services including nuclear medicine, physiotherapy outpatients and rheumatology outpatients that have to move to make room for the main redevelopment.

Once construction begins all the parking spaces in front of the east wing of the Barry Building and the Jubilee Building will be lost. Motorcycle parking and the drop off point will not be affected.

A second temporary building will go up on the site in the coming months towards the centre of the hospital on the courtyard next to the Thomas Kemp.

It will accommodate the three wards from the Jubilee Building, which will be demolished early in the main redevelopment. Duane Passman, director of the 3Ts Redevelopment, said: “We are now moving into the clinical phase of our decant programme.

“This is when the redevelopment becomes real for most people, with the beginning of construction on site.

“This is an exciting time.

“What starts as the foundations for a temporary building today will end with patients being treated in brand new, permanent facilities of the highest quality.”